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Buddha-Basics (Part I) — Scooby Dooby Dukkha

Were going to start a new series of 'Sit-a-Long with Jundo’s' on some fundamental Buddhist teachings — those things every Buddhist needs to know (and not know) — and maybe the most fundamental, insightful and elegant is the Buddha’s teaching of the Four Noble Truths, and Dukkha:

So, what are the 'Four Noble Truths' (the Buddha's earliest teaching)?
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Life often entails Dukkha; there is a cause for Dukkha; there is a way to the cessation of Dukkha; that way is the Noble Eightfold Path.

So, what’s “Dukkha”? …and what does Dukkha do?

No one English word captures the full depth and range of the Pali term, Dukkha. It is sometimes rendered as “suffering,” as in “life is suffering.” But perhaps it’s better expressed as “dissatisfaction,” “anxiety,” “disappointment,” “unease at perfection,” or “frustration” — terms that wonderfully convey a subtlety of meaning.

In a nutshell, your “self” wishes this world to be X, yet this world is not X. The mental state that may result to the “self” from this disparity is Dukkha.
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Shakyamuni Buddha gave many examples: sickness (when we do not wish to be sick), old age (when we long for youth), death (if we cling to life), loss of a loved one (as we cannot let go), violated expectations, the failure of happy moments to last (though we wish them to last). Even joyous moments — such as happiness and good news, treasure or pleasant times — can be a source of suffering if we cling to them, if we are attached to those things.

In ancient stories, Dukkha is often compared to a chariot’s or potter’s wheel that will not turn smoothly as it revolves. The opposite, Sukkha, is a wheel that spins smoothly and noiselessly, without resistance as it goes.

Fortunately, Shakyamuni Buddha also provided the Dukkha cure.

CLICK HERE for today’s Sit-A-Long video.

Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended.

Thank you very much Jundo! It was very helpful for me to sit with that.

Pleasant situations are more easy to accept and to allow, perhaps also because of this everyone tries to create pleasant situations, sometimes also in very artificial ways, like in holidays in some kind of artificial "paradies". But there never can be a real happiness, if you can't also accept the unpleasant situations, because there is no way of getting away from them...

So in pleasant situations I sometimes think: Yes, you made it, now you can accept every situation. A few weeks later (or sometimes a few hours later ;-)) I see that this was just wishful thinking. Therefore perhaps unpleasant situations can be very helpful to learn acceptance and allowing (even if it is not easy)...

"Just be" ... thank you for this Jundo. Funny how sometimes when studying for so long that coming back to the basics is the best teaching. Just like Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, "Zen Mind, Beginners Mind".

Gassho
Michael

RINDO SHINGEN
倫道 真現

As a trainee priest, please take any commentary by me on matters of the Dharma with a pinch of salt.

..always the cause vs the effect...never the right effect lasts, and the wrong result is memorable....we wish this but get that..like a broken record, on and on....even, then, getting what we want turns to smoke, vanishes like the new smell of an expensive car interior...soon it's an old car...

...the other side is awakening to this drama seeing the emptyness of it, the unsubstantiality that causes regrets, feel the evanescence...what joy, only don't hang on to joy....what releif, only don't see it as releif....like a kid wiht his hand in the cookie jar, close the lid. taste the cookie.get ready for the next act....reset..!

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho, Ed B

"Know that the practice of zazen is the complete path of buddha-dharma and nothing can be compared to it....it is not the practice of one or two buddhas but all the buddha ancestors practice this way."
Dogen zenji in Bendowa

Love Jundo's take on this basic teaching that it is not the suffering so much as our resistance to it that compounds it. Nonetheless, just letting it "be" takes lots of practice! We as human beings love to analyze our situation to death & compare lour situation to everyone else's.